May 2006

The pupils at Gardenrose Primary School in Maybole were jumping for joy when they heard that their playground was to have a £4,000 face lift, creating a valuable resource for education, learning and fun. The transformation of the playground comes as part of the Supergrounds programme which was launched in September 2004 by The Royal Bank of Scotland, delivered by the school grounds charity for Scotland, Grounds for Learning (SfL) – part of the national school grounds charity Learning through Landscapes (LTL). more

As part of the Determined to Succeed initiative Cairn Pupil Council decided on a project to refurbish their school library. They prepared a presentation for a panel of Carrick Academy Pupils in a bid for money to finance the project. Their bid was successful and this money along with School Enterprise money was used to purchase furniture, books and a PS2 for the library. more

Carrick Amateur Football Club trophy winners from left to right : Manager George Logan, Player of the Year Derek Bell, Players Player of the Year, John Johnston, Clubman of the Year, Robert Simpson, Managers Player of the Year, Reid Logan and Assistant Manager, George McCulloch.

Picture of the management and players who attended the evening. Maybole's Carrick Amateur Football Club had their first 'Player of the Year' presentations on Saturday 13th May 2006. Master of Ceremonies for the evening was non other than Maybole man Matt Davey and his very able assistant Club Manager George Logan. They thanked everyone who attended the evening and also those who have supported the club through its inaugural season. more

Geocaching is a new activity which is emerging in the UK. Already popular in the United States, it is a kind of treasure hunt using a GPS (Global Positioning System) – a bit like orienteering. GPS takes positions from satellites and calculates your position, anywhere on the planet, to within a few metres. They are commonly used on boats, and more and more in cars. more

Jeannie Sands Dunabie (Corbett) was born on the 3^rd August 1941. Jean was the only daughter to Jack Corbett of Crosshill and Bessie Sands Mair of Newmilns. Jean served the town of Maybole faithfully for many years running JD Cameron’s shop in the town. When Jean retired she really, really missed Cameron’s, she missed the staff who she counted as friends. Jean was very knowledgeable about materials and she missed helping people and chatting with folk. more

Maybole By-Pass. At a meeting last Tuesday night Maybole’s By-pass Committee made the decision to hold another protest on Saturday, May 20. After consultation with the police, however, and because of police resources being used on other events, the committee agreed to hold the next protest on Saturday, June 3. It was further decided to contact list MSPs for this area to ask for their support in the campaign. more


Peter Mason (left in photo on right above) thanked Peter Walker for interrupting his rural conference to allow those attending to join the bypass protest on Saturday morning. This time the protestors marched the length of Maybole High Street - from the Town Hall to the Castle and back up to the Town Hall. Peter Mason can be contacted at 01655 882660

Pupils from Cairn Primary School in Maybole visited Memorial Park Bowling Club last week for lessons in the rudiments of bowling. They were welcomed by the club’s vice-president Gerry Kelly who said, “Who knows perhaps we will have another young person in the future who will represent our club and play for Scotland.” He then introduced Ian Paterson who was the coach for the day.

Lodge St Clement Kilmarnock No 202 held a sponsored walk from Kilmarnock to Portpatrick on Sunday April 30 to raise money for the Portpatrick Life-boat. They completed this by doing 7 mile stages. The R.W.M. of Lodge St John Maybole No 11, Davie Anderson, met up with the walkers on the stage through Maybole and took a couple of photos.

Maybole Diamonds club presented a cheque for £100 to pupils of Carrick Academy last week. Some pupils from the school are visiting the town’s French twin town Crosne next month and they have been fundraising recently. This is the 25th anniversary of the very first visit to Crosne by anyone from Maybole. Four residents made the trip in 1981 to check out the French town with a view of creating a twinning arrangements. Later that year a group from Crosne visited Maybole and the official agreement was signed the following year.

South Ayrshire Council’s Provost Winifred Sloan visited Carrick Academy last week. The provost was launching a Provost's Award to complement the Eco School's programme. She is wanting to encourage pupils to come up with a project to restore some civic pride to Maybole and the villages. The school already has its Eco Scool Bronze Award for its recycling project but is now looking at the wider community for the silver award. Provost Sloan visited the school on Monday May 8 to meet with S1/2 pupil council and hear some of their ideas on tackling litter and graffitti.

Pause………for thought ! Last week six pupils from Carrick Academy - Samantha Horton, Linzi Scobie, April Robinson, Lauren McDowall, Amy McCrindle and Ginny Collie - accompanied by their RME/History teacher Ms. Wilson and the school chaplain Rev. Dave Whiteman visited the West FM/West sound studios in Ayr. They had been chosen to give a talk on a topic which they felt passionately about on ‘Pause for Thought’. They had a wonderful time and discovered how much fun and hard work was involved in radio production. “Our aim,” said Samantha, “is to make people think, to ‘Pause for Thought’! We each picked a different subject that we felt strongly about.”“ more

Eighteen pupils from Cairn Primary visited Maybole Castle last week and were desperate to find out about, or see, a ghost or two! Unfortunately, there were none in that day but Mr. David Killicoat, of Maybole Historical Society, had lots of stories about them! He also had lots of other interesting information about the Castle and everyone had a great time and hoped to visit again with their families soon.

The 2006 King and Queen of Carrick and their school.

King - Owen McDowall
Queen - Amy Strang
St Cuthbert's Primary

Last Friday members of Maybole's Tiny Tots Play group said goodbye to Mrs Arlene Crawford who has been a leader at the group for almost ten years. Before that Arlene was with the forerunner of the group for approximately five years. Tributes were paid to Arlene for her years of service and several of the tiny tots then presented her with gifts to remember them by. While there for the presentation out photographer took the opportunity to photograph the tots in action.

St. Cuthbert's Primary School pupils visit to the fire station and with police dog.

Cairn nursery's construction of the sun and planets.

Last Thursday evening local sports groups were given the opportunity to try out the new all weather pitch at Carrick Academy. Players thoroughly enjoyed playing on the new surface and their coaches were very impressed with it.

During last session, Cairn Primary School has spent a considerable amount of money purchasing new, bright, interesting active learning resources. The pupils have enjoyed using these during their lessons and wanted to invite friends and family in to school to show off the new resources. On Friday, 12th May, the Pupil Council held the grand opening of a newly refurbished library, inviting local councillor Brian Connlly to cut the ribbon and join guests in a tour of the school. Parents and friends of the school were invited in to visit all the classrooms and experience the activities for themselves. One parent was heard to say "We didn't have such fun learning when I was at school!"

The complete text of the headlines above and more articles follows.

May 2006

LOCAL SCHOOL PLAYGROUND GETS SUPER MAKEOVER

The pupils at Gardenrose Primary School in Maybole were jumping for joy when they heard that their playground was to have a £4,000 face lift, creating a valuable resource for education, learning and fun. The transformation of the playground comes as part of the Supergrounds programme which was launched in September 2004 by The Royal Bank of Scotland, delivered by the school grounds charity for Scotland, Grounds for Learning (SfL) – part of the national school grounds charity Learning through Landscapes (LTL).

Supergrounds is a £3 million project that will improve 450 primary school playgrounds over three years, and Gardenrose Primary School had been selected to be part of year two of the programme. Supergrounds has been developed by The Royal Bank of Scotland to strengthen the ties between Bank staff and their communities, with staff nominating schools that they are involved with. Sardenrose Primary School became involved with the scheme through Mrs Carol Qua from The Royal Bank of Scotland, who is a parent and member of the school board at the school.

It is difficult for schools to raise funds and this scheme seemed an ideal way to improve the school grounds to help the children develop. Mrs Mary Scott Head Teacher at Gardenrose Primary School said: "It's fantastic that Supergrounds are supporting the development of the playground at the school. School playgrounds are one of the few safe outdoor spaces that are available to children. We are really excited about working with Supergrounds to ensure that the playground makes a real difference to the pupils' lives.

“It's great that The Royal Bank of Scotland through Supergrounds, agreed to give its support to the school. The children have been heavily involved in the decision making process and decided that a Trim Trail will provide an area that will be both great fun and an area for exercise at playtimes and in lessons.”

As part of the Determined to Succeed initiative Cairn Pupil Council decided on a project to refurbish their school library. They prepared a presentation for a panel of Carrick Academy Pupils in a bid for money to finance the project. Their bid was successful and this money along with School Enterprise money was used to purchase furniture, books and a PS2 for the library.

They also organised the library to be redecorated and were pleased to announce the Grand Opening of their newly refurbished library on Friday 12th May. Invited guests included Councillor Connolly, Rev. Whiteman and parent helpers. Pupil Council members along with staff and pupils will enjoy using the new facility throughout the school day, lunch time and Golden Time activities. Pupil Council Members: Victoria Bell (P4), Connor McClung (P4), Kenneth Tweedie (P5), Shannon Andrew (P5), Ewan Parker(P7), Caitlin Davidson(P7), Kimberly McCoy(P6),Ross Keenan (P6)

Carrick Amateurs. A very special thank you went to the players and committee who saw the club successfully gain promotion and who are now looking forward to participating in the all new Ayrshire Second Division next season. Thanks was given to all those who sponsored the club over the season. The main sponsors being, Paul and Lesley from Chequers Sports Bar, Mr and Mrs Laidlaw from Reid’s Transport, John Cuthbert Ground Works, David Murray from West Clean, John Jamieson and Martin and Roberta of Hannah's Taxis.

Carrick Sport Club steward Willie Parker and his wife Debbie put on a lovely buffet which everyone commented on and complimented the quality and quantity of the food. A big thanks to Debbie and Willie for a lovely buffet. The club had a very successful Race Night earlier in the year and a big thanks was given to Alex Meek, Dennis McCaffery and Glen Cuthbert, their willingness and professionalism helped make it such a success.

Trophy Winners were:

Reid’s Transport Player of the Year awarded to Derek Bell (Del),

John Cuthbert Ground Works Players’ Player of the Year awarded to John Johnston (JJ),

Manager’s Player of the Year awarded to Reid Logan and Carrick's Clubman of the Year, The Thomas Shaw Memorial Shield, was awarded to Robert Simpson. A special presentation was made to Glen Cuthbert for his work, commitment and unselfish endeavours in supporting amateur football in Maybole.

Geocaching is a new activity which is emerging in the UK. Already popular in the United States, it is a kind of treasure hunt using a GPS (Global Positioning System) – a bit like orienteering. GPS takes positions from satellites and calculates your position, anywhere on the planet, to within a few metres. They are commonly used on boats, and more and more in cars.

Maybole Resource Centre has just secured funding from South Ayrshire Adult Literacies Partnership to run a course in Geocaching for 16-25 year olds in Maybole and the surrounding villages. The aims of the course will be to teach the basics in map reading, how to read and understand co-ordinates, how to plot a route taking into consideration the terrain, weather conditions and the ability of the participants, and calculate the time it will take to get to your destination.

On top of this, there will be locations to be reached which contain geocaches (the treasure!) which have to be found and logged on the website – www.geocaching.com. The idea is that when you find the geocache you take something from it, and leave something new. Quite often it will be something like a Tupperware box, or a plastic bag with little items like toys, pens or notepads inside. Participants in the course will have the opportunity to get out and about in the countryside to find the geocaches, and also to create their own for other people to find.

It will be run in partnership with ACE – the Activity Centre for Education, by Chris Saunders and his staff who have a wealth of experience in all kinds of outdoor activities. The course is going to run over twelve weeks, beginning in June, and recruiting will start soon, so if you, or anyone you know would be interested, please contact Gillian at Maybole Resource Centre on 01655 884022.

Jeannie Sands Dunabie (Corbett) was born on the 3^rd August 1941. Jean was the only daughter to Jack Corbett of Crosshill and Bessie Sands Mair of Newmilns. Jean served the town of Maybole faithfully for many years running JD Cameron’s shop in the town. When Jean retired she really, really missed Cameron’s, she missed the staff who she counted as friends. Jean was very knowledgeable about materials and she missed helping people and chatting with folk.

The two main things in Jean’s life were her family and her work.. Jean loved her garden, she was very knowledgeable about the garden and she loved Culzean and the walks there. Jean was very clever with her hands, knitting and sewing and she made wonderful wedding cakes; her home baking was wonderful. Jean was quiet by nature, she was a very faithful friend to have; once you made friends with Jean you had a friend for life and nothing for Jean was a bother.

Jean was never one for the limelight, she was a hard working background person, happy to do her bit behind the scenes. Jean was very sincere, a very reliable person and a long abiding memory for many will be her lovely smile. In life and in work, Jean set herself very high standards. Everything had to be just so, when Jean gave her word she kept it. Jean was a woman of faith, she loved her church, never missed a Sunday and she really missed the church when she took ill.

Jean bore her illness as she lived her life, with great dignity; she never complained and we thank God that Jean left this life with dignity and she is now at rest and at peace. Jean is survived by her husband John, daughters Annie and Yvonne, and grandchildren Laura, Hannah and Katie. Jean will be very sadly missed.

Maybole By-Pass

At a meeting last Tuesday night Maybole’s By-pass Committee made the decision to hold another protest on Saturday, May 20. After consultation with the police, however, and because of police resources being used on other events, the committee agreed to hold the next protest on Saturday, June 3. It was further decided to contact list MSPs for this area to ask for their support in the campaign.

Peter Mason, chair of the committee commented, “We would like to thank the police, our local MSP Cathy Jamieson, our two local councillors Alan Murray and Brian Connolly, and the public for all the support they have given us in this campaign and for all future protests we are going to have.” He continued, “During our protests we have had great support, and we also have had a few comments from people saying that they do not wish a by-pass, saying the town will die.

The case for a by-pass is clear; however, and we will save our historic buildings; people will be able to walk down our High Street more safely; trade for local businesses will increase; the quality of life for locals and visitors will improve; house prices will rise - the A77 put some buyers off. We have in hand measures to publicise Maybole, if we get a by-pass. At each entrance to the town coming off the by-pass we will have signage pointing out the attractions Maybole has to offer the visitor. These include our historic castle, historic walks, shops, cafes, petrol station, and the history of Maybole to name but a few. So it is our opinion that instead of dying, the town will flourish.”

Pause………for thought ! Last week six pupils from Carrick Academy - Samantha Horton, Linzi Scobie, April Robinson, Lauren McDowall, Amy McCrindle and Ginny Collie - accompanied by their RME/History teacher Ms. Wilson and the school chaplain Rev. Dave Whiteman visited the West FM/West sound studios in Ayr. They had been chosen to give a talk on a topic which they felt passionately about on ‘Pause for Thought’. They had a wonderful time and discovered how much fun and hard work was involved in radio production. “Our aim,” said Samantha, “is to make people think, to ‘Pause for Thought’! We each picked a different subject that we felt strongly about.”“

We were introduced to Kenny Campbell who showed us around the studio” said April. Each of the pupils took turns in the recording studio and their thoughts will be going out on week beginning June 18at 6.50am and repeated at 7.50am on West Sound 1035MW. Ginny said, “We had our pictures taken in front of the mike.” According to Amy and Lauren “the whole experience was nerve racking but fun!”

All agreed that the meeting with Mel Walker was an added bonus. She showed them the ‘ins and outs’ of radio broadcasting. On the way back from the studio Mel mentioned the girls live on air and played a track for all the seniors studying for their exams at Carrick Academy. They were thrilled!

Each pupil received a goodie bag courtesy of West Sound and West FM from Kenny Campbell on the way out. Unfortunately Robbie Williams was nowhere to be seen ! The girls want to say a big thank you to all the staff at West Sound/West FM who were hospitable and friendly. It was a great enterprising experience !

Topics for the week beginning Sunday June 18 are

Sam Horton “Old Friends”

Lauren McDowall “Exam Stress”

April Robinson “teenage Groups”

Ginny Collie “Borderline Theatre”

Amy McCrindle “Growing Up Too Fast”

Linzi Scobie “Stereotyping and Perception”

As part of Adult Learners' Week, the Silver Surfers' Club which meets in the Carnegie Building in Maybole on Thursday afternoons is hosting an Open Doors Day on Thursday May 25 between 1 pm and 3 pm. The aim of the group is to introduce older learners to how they can use ICT to further a hobby or interest. The Open Day will give an introduction to digital photography and how to scan and email photos to keep in touch with family etc. Other interests explored by the group previously have included Local History, Family History, Gardening, and secure use of the Internet for buying items. An invitation is extended to senior residents of the town who are interested in finding out more.